
*" ---' '-- f. *■' 



Class _JMl3JJ_ 
Book , Ht*' 



_L_ 



GopyriglrtN? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



/ 

PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY 



A SYNOPTICAL STUDY OF 



The Science of the Hand 



BY 



/ 



EDWARD HERON-ALLEN 
II 

AUTHOR OF "A RJAJJ.UAL OF CH EIROSOPH Y," " THE SCIENCE OF THE HAND,' 
"A DISCOURSE OF CHYROMANC1E," " CODEX CHIROMANTLE," ETC. 



Explanatory Tlates and Diagrams 



ROSAMUND BRUNEI, HORSLEY 







NEW YORK AND LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

(£fte ftmcfcerbocftet 5>re$tf 

1887 



3^V 



Copyright, 1887, 
By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York 



"%u ^itmaxi^m tr 



To the Memory 

Of days that are />ast, and of hours that have long gone by : 

INSCRIBED 

With the name of a Friend 

Whose gentle hands have titrned the last leaf 

Of a book that is etided : 

1T Dedicate 

THESE LABOURS OF MINE IN A NEW WORLD 



/*Vj>/ 



^ J&\ 



0^ ^v ^V^ *-* v9 y 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Prefatory Excursion 9 

Introduction . 13 

Part I. — Hand Superstitions and Customs ... 23 

Part II. — The Physiology of the Hand .... 33 
Part III. — On the Shapes of Hands: Cheirog- 

nomy 45 

Part IV. — Cheiromancy or Palmistry 86 

5 



LIST OF PLATES. 



PAGE 

I. The Bones of the Hand 39 

II. The Thumb, the Joints, and the Lines in 

the Hand 51 

III. The Elementary Hand 63 

IV. The Spatulate Hand 67 

V. The Conic Hand 71 

VI. The Square Hand 75 

VII. The Knotty Hand 79 

VIII. The Pointed Hand S3 

IX. The Mounts of the Palm 93 

X. The Lines and Mounts 97 

XI. The Lines and Mounts 101 

XII. Ages upon the Lines of Life and Fortune, 107 

XIII. The Lines in 

7 



PREFATORY EXCURSION. 



THE first lecture that I had the pleasure of giving 
in the United States was delivered from the notes 
from which, in turn, this little book has been written, — 
has been written in odd moments saved from the wreck 
of time, amid the rapids of existence in New York. It 
is therefore, perhaps, necessary that I should apologize 
for the manner in which I have dealt with a subject 
that stands in no need of any apology in itself, and 
should offer this word of explanation of the style in 
which this Opusculum has been prepared. In revising 
the transcript of the stenographic notes which I caused 
to be taken of that lecture, I have frequently been 
astonished at my own temerity in attempting to dis- 
cuss, within such narrow limits of time and space, a 
subject so vast as that of The Hand ; were it not that 
I had pledged myself to the preparation of this per- 
manent record of the remarks I was enabled by the 
time at my disposal to make, I should more than 
once have laid down my pen in despair. 

9 



10 PREFATORY EXCURSION. 

I have done what I could, during the process of 
revision, to give to my work the semblance, at any 
rate, of a completeness which it does not, — cannot, 
possess ; but even now, at the moment that the sheets 
are ready to leave the press, I am overwhelmed by 
the knowledge of my inability to give completeness 
even to a sketch of the subject which has been identi- 
fied with my name in two continents. At the request, 
therefore, of a number of those who were unable to 
be present on that occasion, and whom I shall never 
— in deference to a deeply rooted national aversion 
to twice-told tales — be able to address to the same 
effect in the future, I deliver these sheets to the 
printer, "not as a guaranty of good faith, but for 
publication," in the hope that in gratifying a widely 
expressed curiosity with regard to that lecture, I shall 
not offend those to whom, like myself, the Science 
of Cheirosophy is a not un-important branch of the 
great study of human nature, — a branch incapable of 
being adequately honored between the covers of a 
" Hand-book" — the term being used in the literary 
and not the Cheirosophic sense. 

I have taken advantage of the "cool reflection" 
which has followed the delivery of my lecture, to add 
a few passages, which I would fain have introduced 



PREFA TOR Y EXCURSION. I I 

into my discourse, did I not hold it to be a lecturer's 
duty to his audience, to be as brief as circumstances 
will permit. I have also utilized the opportunities 
thus offered me, to append a fairly complete system of 
notes, which may help those of my readers who feel a 
sufficient interest in the subject to probe the matters 
referred to more deeply; and I have further made 
reference, where it has seemed necessary or advisable, 
to my larger works on the Science of Cheirosophy, so 
that this little work may, as it were, serve for an ele- 
mentary guide to the study of those larger volumes. 

I claim the indulgence of the public for this little 
book on one ground alone : that it may serve as an 
introduction to the Science, for many whose attention 
has not hitherto been called to its value as a practical 
means of diagnosing the characters of our fellow-men. 
May I hope, that in awakening a new interest in the 
minds of some of my readers, I have acted for them 
as pioneer along a path which may lead them — who 
knows ? — to a solution of the intricate problem that 
must so often have perplexed them, — I mean them- 
selves ! 

ED. HERON-ALLEN. 

Everett House, New York, 
Jan. 7, 1887. 



PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE pleasure with which I approach the task 
which I have undertaken, in attempting to 
record in this form the remarks I have been 
privileged to make from the lecture-platform, is 
sensibly modified by regret, — regret that the 
space at my disposal is far too limited to enable 
me to write a fractional part of what I should 
wish to record upon a subject which has been 
one of intense interest to me in the years that 
are past, and which is one which touches us all 
very nearly. The subject, however, has this 
one great advantage : it stands in no need of 
any preliminary apology ; its importance is its 
own introduction ; and I will therefore address 
myself at once to the subject that we have be- 
fore us, and call your attention to some points 
which I trust will interest you in connection 
with the human Hand. 

13 



14 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

There is, I think, no need for me to lay em- 
phasis upon the paramount importance of the 
hand in the human economy. This has been 
acknowledged ever since Aristotle, in the fourth 
century before Christ, called it "the organ of 
the organs," ' the active agent of the passive 
powers of the entire human system ; and we, in 
these latter days, shall hardly be prepared to 
controvert this statement, when we reflect that 
there exists no human action, and hardly any 
rite or ceremony, in which the hand is not, if 
not prime agent, at least an important actor. 
Look only at the fountain-head of all knowledge, 
— literature: is it not by means of the works 
of their hands, by their writings, that we are en- 
abled to hold, as Galen says, 2 converse with all 
the venerable sages, both of remote antiquity 
and of the recent past, with all those intellectual 
heroes who have bequeathed to us in writing 
the intellectual treasures of their own divine 
imaginations ? 

We have only to pass from this to the con- 
templation of the manufactures (which it would 
be impossible to conceive, were men created 
without hands), to be brought to this inevitable 

1 IIEPI ZfiQN MOPIfiN. Book iv. cap. 9. 

2 De Usu Partium Corporis Humani. Book i. cap. 1. 



INTR OD UC TION. I 5 

conviction : — that (to borrow an illustration 
from Darwin) it is by his hands that man 
hangs, monkey-like, from the branches of the 
Tree of Knowledge. 

Not only in writing and in manufactures, but 
in verbal instruction, in the pulpit, in the senate, 
and in the drama, the part which is played by 
the human hand is one, the importance of which 
has occupied the attention of the highest au- 
thorities in these matters ; and the varied emo- 
tions, expressions, and significations which may 
be conveyed by the hands alone have been made 
the subject not only of celebrated passages in 
the works of such writers as Quintilian the 
orator, 3 and Montaigne the essayist, 4 but of 
entire works upon the movements and gestures 
of the hands as an aid to oratory. 5 What could 
be more significant as a practical confirmation 
of what I say, than the fact that after the 
murder of Cicero at Caieta, his hands as well 
as his head were sent to be exposed in the 
Roman Forum, as the means whereby he had 
cajoled and deluded the Roman citizens ? 



3 De Institutione Oratorica. Book xi. cap. 3. 

4 Apologie de Raimond Sebond. Book ii. cap. 12. 

5 Sc. J. Bulvver : Chirologia ; or the Naturall Language of the 
Hand. (London, 1644.) 



1 6 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

The ancients were therefore actuated by the 
keenest reasoning in looking upon the amputa- 
tion of the hands as the severest punishment 
which they could inflict upon their enemies ; 6 
for a man without hands is not even the ninth 
part of a man. He simply cumbers the earth, so 
far as any practical utility is concerned : though 
there have been recorded many instances of 
curious and minute forms of workmanship, and 
even the playing of such musical instruments 
as the violin, being effected by persons who 
have been either born without hands, or have 
been deprived of them early in life ; even down 
to the instance quoted by Sir Charles Bell, 7 of 
the Russian beggar born without arms, who, 
haunting a wood a short distance from Mos- 
cow, used to murder wayfarers by stunning 
them with a blow of his head, dragging them 
into the wood, and despatching them with his 
teeth. 

Many celebrated men have been one-handed. 
We know that Nelson lost his right arm at 
Teneriffe, and Cervantes the use of his left at 
the battle of Lepanto in 175 1 ; but these acci- 

6 Xenophon: 'EAAHMKON. Book ii. cap. I (31). 

7 The Hand: its Mechanism and Vital Endowments. (London, 
1832.) 



INTROD UCTION. 1 7 

dents did not, in the former case, interfere with 
the talents of Horatio Nelson as Lord- High 
Admiral of the Fleet, nor in the latter prevent 
the evolution of those heroes of romance — 
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Still, all such 
cases must be looked upon as historic excep- 
tions ; and we come back to the original com- 
ments of Anaxagoras and of Aristotle, to the 
effect that man, being the wisest of all animals, 
has alone, of all animals, been gifted with 
hands, the instruments of his high intellectual 
faculties. 8 

To echo my words, I have said that man 
alone of all animals has hands : that is to say, in 
no other creature do we find either extremities 
so perfectly articulated, or mental powers so 
highly developed ; and commencing at the low- 
est forms of animal life, and progressing up- 
wards along the scale of created beings, the 
eminent natural historian, Milne Edwards, has 
observed 9 that "the faculties of the mammalia 
are elevated in proportion as their extremities 
are the better constructed for prehension and 
touch." And, to go a step farther, we find an 

8 Aristotle and Galen: vide the passages quoted in notes 1 
and 2. 

9 A Manual of Zoology. (London, 1863.) §§306-343. 



1 8 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

ascending scale of intelligence among the ani- 
mals which are gifted with the nearest approach 
to, and best substitutes for, hands ; as in the 
case of the elephant, an instance which has 
been cited both by Lucretius and by Cicero. 10 

Sir Richard Owen, in a most interesting little 
book "On the Nature of Limbs/' 11 has traced 
step by step the homologies between the human 
hand and the paws of the brute creation, with 
the effect of demonstrating that the third fin- 
ger is the one digit that no animal is without, 
and that as the extremities become less and 
less articulated, that is to say jointed, so as to 
be capable of varied movement, it is the outer 
fingers which we discover by comparative anat- 
omy to be missing, and it is the third or middle 
finger that represents in man the hoof of the 
horse, and of such animals. 

To man, then, and to man alone, is the per- 
fect construction of the hand, as we see it, 
peculiarly adapted ; and it is to man alone with 
his varied mental and physical requirements, 
that, as Galen remarked, the Creator has given, 
in lieu of every other natural weapon or organ 

10 Lucretius : De Rerum Natura. Book ii. line 536. Cicero : De 
Natura Deorum. Book ii. s. 123. 

11 London, 1849. p. 29. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 9 

of defence, that exquisite and universally en- 
dowed instrument, the hand. 

We know, that as different orders of created 
beings have differently constructed extremities, 
so various races of men, even various nations 
of the same race, show marked varieties of 
characteristic in the shapes of their hands. It 
is my intention to carry the question farther 
still, and to put before you the data upon which 
I have formed my unalterable conviction that 
not only do these clearly marked diversities of 
characteristic occur between the hands of races 
and of nations, but that in every community 
of men and women certain physical and men- 
tal characteristics are clearly signified by cer- 
tain concomitant peculiarities in the formation 
of the hands ; and that by observing these 
characteristics of the hands, we may read off 
those characteristics of the mind, by means 
of the simple and physical science of Chei- 
rosophy. 

We are most of us prepared to admit, from 
the sculptor's point of view, the grandeur and 
beauty of a large and finely modelled male 
hand ; but there are very few of us who do 
not confess in our hearts a preference for the 
smooth and small and gently moulded hand that 



20 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

characterizes for us, what has been called justly 
the softer, and unjustly the weaker, sex, favor- 
ably contrasting such hands with the rough and 
red fist, which, according to Sir Philip Sidney, I2 
indicates " robust health, a warm heart, and 
distance from the metropolis," or, according to 
Don Quixote, great strength. 13 It is interesting 
to note, that some of the keenest and cleverest 
men that history has known have been re- 
nowned for the elegance, — the womanliness, of 
their hands. Among such I may quote the 
great Sultan Mahmoud II., Lord Byron, and 
Pope Leo X. 

In Persia, the hawthorn blossom is called the 
" white hand of Moses/' I4 and "the white hand" 
is always looked upon as the symbol of inno- 
cence and of gratitude ; I5 whence, conversely, 
our expression, "red-handed," as the synonym 
of guilt. I shall have something to say later 
on about the importance attached to the hand 
among Oriental nations, at present I have said 

12 Vide Ed. Heron-Allen : The Science of the Hand. (London, 
1886.) 1[io. 

13 Don Quixote : Part ii. chap. 23. 

14 Rubaiy£t of Omar-i-Khayyam. Nicolas' text and translation 
(Paris, 1867), 1 86th quatrain. Fitzgerald's translation (Boston, 1886) 
fourth verse. 

x s Arabian Nights (Burton), vol. iv. p. 185. Ed. Heron-Allen: 
The Science of the Hand, If 11. 



INTRO D UCTION. 2 1 

enough to serve as an introduction to a con- 
sideration of the bases upon which a complete 
science of — shall I call it divination ? — has 
been raised, having the Human Hand as its 
point of departure. 

Indeed, indeed, have I not some right to 
claim a hearing for the science of cheirosophy ? 
The labors of Johann Kaspar Lavater have cul- 
minated in the establishment of the science of 
physiognomy. 16 The untiring researches and 
efforts of Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar 
Spurzheim I7 have secured a place among the 
sciences of to-day for that of phrenology. Now, 
I claim your attention for a space whilst I bring 
before you a science many centuries older than 
either of these, — a science which I trust I shall 
be able to prove to you to be more easy in ap- 
plication, more simple in acquisition, and more 
certain in its results, than either or both. 

I am not going to bore you with theories. I 
have done that enthusiastically in my two larger 
works on the hand. 18 I ask your attention now 

16 J. K. Lavater : Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beforderung 
der Menschenkenntriss und Menschenliebe (Leipzig, 1775-78). 

17 F. J. Gall : Anatomie et Physiologie du systeme nerveux, et du 
cerveau en particulier (Paris, 1809-19). 

18 Ed. Heron-Allen: A Manual of Cheirosophy (London, 1885). 
The Science of the Hand (London, 1886). New York: G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons, 27 West 23d St. 



22 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

to a few notes upon the hand, which I trust 
will interest you as much as they have inter- 
ested me, and to a short exposition of the actual 
principles and practice of my science, which 
may help you to understand the strange prob- 
lems which must often have perplexed you, — 
namely, yourselves. 



HAND SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS. 2$ 



PART I. 

HAND SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS. 

I HAVE, before this, had occasion to say that 
I believe there exists no symbolical action, 
adopted by the human race, in which the hand 
does not play a — or the — principal part. In 
proof of this, let us revert to simplicity. 

How many times a day do we shake hands 
with our friends ! Sometimes this action is 
quite mechanical and meaningless ; sometimes 
it is quite the reverse : but, however we perform 
the ceremony, I do not think there are many of 
us who remember that people only go through 
it with one another to emphasize the fact that 
they are not concealing a weapon wherewith to 
surreptitiously murder the person with whom 
they are shaking hands. Yet such was the 
origin of hand-shaking. Now, indeed, that the 
custom has become, as I say, mechanical and 
universal, it is quite a study by itself, — the 
various methods in which people go through 
this ceremony, from the dreaded individual who 



24 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

shakes hands with you "like that" (as Gilbert 
says), to the haughty person of whom the poet 
has written, — 

" With finger-tips he condescends 
To touch the fingers of his friends, 
As if he feared their palms might brand 
Some moral stigma on his hand ! " 

Closely allied to this, is the custom, which 
obtained among the nations of classical anti- 
quity, and which, indeed, still exists among sav- 
age tribes, of holding up the hands as a sign of 
peace before coming to close quarters for the 
purposes of palaver ; and among modern civil- 
ized nations, those of us who know the lonely 
moor districts of England, and the still more 
lonely prairie roads of North America, may per- 
haps have been disconcerted by the sudden 
direction, " Hold up your hands ! " from the 
mouth of the casual footpad : the signification 
in each case being to demonstrate the fact that 
the person so placed is unarmed, or at any rate 
powerless to resist. 

Following the like analogy, — the abrogation 
of all power, and the consequent supplication 
for mercy, — we have the custom of folding the 
hands in prayer, a custom which has prevailed 



HAND SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS. 2$ 

since the earliest historic times; 19 and allied 
with this is the Oriental rule which ordains 
that the hands shall be hidden in the presence 
of a superior, by crossing the arms, or by hid- 
ing the hands in a fold of the robe. So, again, 
in giving the hand, as the bride does in the 
marriage ceremony, or as the vassals did to their 
lords in the mediaeval ceremony of the homage, 
the like abrogation of will is intended to be 
symbolized. From this we get to the kissing 
of hands — perhaps the most abject expression 
of humility that is known to civilization, 20 being 
reserved solely for princes and fair women, to 
whom in this manner we signalize our allegiance 
and submission. Of course I do not overlook 
the kissing of the priest's hands in the celebra- 
tions of the Roman-Catholic Church, but this is 
more a matter of ritual than of personal homage 
from man to man. 21 It is said that the practice 
of kissing one's hands to people, by way of salu- 
tation, is a relic of the Parsee fire-worship ; the 
ancient Persian custom being to place the hand 
upon the mouth, and raise it towards the sun. 22 

x 9 Aristotle: Ilepi Koa-fxovl Ke<£ Z'. 

20 Ed. Heron- A lien : A Manual of Cheirosophy. Iffl 18, 19. 

21 F. Rous: Archeologicae Atticae (London, 1685), p. 278. 

22 J. Brand: Popular Antiquities of Great Britain. Hazlitt's edi- 
tion (London, 1870). 



26 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

These instances are sufficient to point the 
fact that the hand is more or less universally re- 
garded as a symbol of power. To such a point 
is this carried by the Moslem races, that in 
Morocco even the number five is never men- 
tioned in the presence of the Emperor, and the 
fingers of the hand represent a rosary of the 
five precepts of Islam ; viz., " Belief in Allah and 
in Muhammad his prophet," " Prayer," "Alms- 
giving," " The holy pilgrimage to Mecca," and 
"The Fast of Ramadan." 

Again, we find traces of the same recognition 
in a thousand different words and phrases bring- 
ing in the word "hand," in its Latin, Greek, or 
English forms, with the signification of power 
or initiative force. 23 Thus we have many such 
lines in Shakspeare, as, " He is a tall man of 
his hands;" and in Bacon, as, "At an even 
hand" signifying equality. 

Nothing was more common, at one time, than 
the oath by the hand, which was either held up, 
as is still the custom in Scotch and French 
courts of law, or laid upon the altar or Bible ; 
customs which bring us to the various religious 
rites, such as the laying-on of hands in the 
consecration of priests, and in the confirmation 

23 A Manual of Cheirosophy. ^•j 14, 15. 



HAND SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS. 27 

service. The episcopal blessing, which is given 
with the thumb and first two fingers only ex- 
tended, is most interesting to us ; for its signifi- 
cation is thus laid down in works upon the 
ritual. 2 4 The thumb is the representative of 
Unity in the Godhead — the cross, by the by, 
in baptism is directed to be traced upon the 
child's forehead with the thumb ; — the first fin- 
ger is the emblem of Christ, the indicator of 
God's will, and its revealer to mankind. So, 
too, the first finger was held by the older chei- 
romants to be the representative of Jupiter. 
The second finger represents, in the ritual, the 
Holy Ghost. So that the three digits held thus 
represent the Trinity, which is invoked in the 
blessing. The ring in the marriage-service is 
placed upon the third finger, in token that after 
the Trinity the man's eternal allegiance is given 
to his wife, — the ring being the symbol of eter- 
nity. In the old marriage service, the ring 
used to be placed on the thumb and the first 
two fingers in turn, and then left upon the 
third finger of the woman's hand. This also is, 
of course, the origin of the position of the fingers 
in the little coral or metal hands worn in the 

24 Gulielmus Durandus : Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Ven- 
ice, 1589), p. 140, verso. 



28 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

south of Italy to avert the evil eye, the hand 
being cast either in the position prescribed for 
the blessing, or in that known as "the devil's 
horns." 25 The most potent of these charms is 
that known as the Mano Pantea, in which the 
hand is embossed with various symbols of occult 
meaning but infallible power ! 

Closely connected with "the laying-on of 
hands" was the old ceremony of "touching for 
the king's evil." On a given day, people 
afflicted with particular diseases used to as- 
semble at Whitehall ; and the sovereign used 
either to touch them personally, or used to have 
distributed to them pieces of money, or rings, 
which had been hallowed by the royal touch. 26 
Many authentic accounts of this ceremony are 
to be found in contemporary literature. The 
custom is of the highest antiquity. Suetonius 
and Tacitus record instances of cures performed 
in this manner by the Emperor Vespasian at 
Alexandria, cures which are wholly marvellous 
in the recital ; 27 and as late as the reign of 



25 A Manual of Cheirosophy. fl 23, 24. 

26 Gentleman's Magazine. 1747, p. 13; 1751, p. 414; 1829 (ii.), 
p. 499. 

27 Godwin's Lives of the Necromancers (London, 1834), p. 155. 
Hume's Essays, Part III., sect. x. 



HAND SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS. 29 

Queen Anne, Dr. Johnson was touched for 
some real or fancied ill by the sovereign. Her- 
rick has beautifully recorded such a cure in the 
lines : — 

" Oh, lay that hand on me, 
Adored Caesar, and my faith is such, 
I shall be cured, if that my king but touch. 
The evil is not yours, my sorrow sings, 
Mine is the evil, but the cure the king's." 

Hesperides. 

What I have now said sufficiently demon- 
strates the importance with which the hand has 
always been invested, and gives us some insight 
into the atrocity of the punishment of cutting 
off the hands, which was so much in vogue 
among the ancient Greeks and Romans, which 
has been largely practised in our own country 
[England], and which exists still as a favorite 
form of punishment among Oriental nations ; a 
punishment which is the most horrible that it 
is possible to conceive, for it entirely and per- 
manently precludes the possibility of the suf- 
ferer ever making his own living honestly in 
the future. As late as the seventeenth cen- 
tury, this punishment was inflicted in England 
upon persons who should commit any assault 
in a court of justice ; and Mr. Pepys refers 



30 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

graphically and quaintly to an occasion of the 
kind. 28 

From the cutting-off of hands to the cutting- 
off of thumbs is but a short step ; and from the 
Roman coward, who by cutting off his thumbs, 
lest he should be sent to the wars, produced 
the modern word " poltroon" (from the words 
pollice truncatd), to the invention of the thumb- 
screw by the Spaniards, the amputation or 
mutilation of the thumb, as being the most 
important digit of the hand, has been awarded 
as a punishment for felonies and political of- 
fences of various degrees. 

Upon the importance of the thumb in the 
study of the hand, too much stress could not 
possibly be laid. It was with the thumb that 
the Romans spared the fallen gladiator's life, 
or condemned him to death ; it is by licking 
his thumb that the Ulster man clinches his 
bargains ; whilst it was by biting his thumb at 
Abram that Sampson, in "Romeo and Juliet," 
engaged the adherents of the Montagues and 
Capulets in a street brawl. 29 It is by the prick- 
ing of her thumbs that the witch in " Macbeth " 
knows that "something evil her way comes," — 

28 Science of the Hand, Index : sub Amputation of the Hand. 

2 9 Act I., scene 2. 



HAND SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS. 3 1 

a peculiarity of this digit which was shared, we 
are told, by the Irish hero Fingal. 

Who is there who has never heard of the 
itching palm 3 ° as a sign of avarice ? Stevens 
has truly observed that all sudden pains of the 
body, which cannot immediately be accounted 
for, were anciently assumed to be presages of 
events about to happen. This theory con- 
cerning the itching palm has been developed 
from a much older one, which lays it down 
as an axiom that an itching palm is the fore- 
runner of a coming legacy, or gift of money, 
— a superstition which came originally from 
Persia. 31 

Is there any one among us who has not heard 
a score of jingles and superstitions concerning 
finger-nails ? Even as I write, there come flit- 
ting through my mind the old rhymes as to the 
days for cutting them, and the white spots which 
we find in them. As to what are the right days 
on which to pare the nails, the superstitions are 
innumerable and extremely antique. No Roman 
citizen would ever pare his nails save upon the 
Ferice Nundince, which recurred at intervals of 

30 Science of the Hand. *~ 4. 

31 G.Atkinson: Customs and Manners of the Women of Persia. 
(London, 1832.) 



32 . PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

nine days ; 32 and I have come across old ladies 
in country districts who not only choose care- 
fully the days upon which to cut their own and 
their children's nails, but even make a point of 
cutting them over the leaves of the Bible, to 
insure their continuance in the paths of honesty 
and of virtue. 33 

32 Ausonius : Eclogarium, 373. 

33 Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain. (London, 1870.) 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HAND. 33 



PART II. 
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HAND. 

LET us devote a few moments to the consid- 
eration of the exquisite construction of the 
member with which we are concerned at this 
present. 

The first thing which cannot fail to strike us 
at once, concerning the hand, is its complete 
perfection. In no other combination of bones, 
muscles, and nerves, and in no other animal, 
do we find a perfection which results in such 
superiority with regard to strength, variety, 
rapidity, and extent of motion ; and this perfec- 
tion resulting, as it undoubtedly does, from 
the intimate relations which exist between the 
hand and the intellect, we are irresistibly com- 
pelled to ask with Sir Charles Bell, "Is it noth- 
ing to have our minds awakened to the percep- 
tion of the numerous proofs of design which 
present themselves in the study of the hand, to 
be brought to the conviction that every thing in 
its structure is orderly and systematic, and that 



34 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

the most perfect mechanism, the most minute 
and curious apparatus, and sensibilities the 
most delicate and appropriate, are all combined 
in operation that we may move the hand." 34 
And further, we are bound to say, with Galen, 35 
that its entire structure is such that it could 
not be improved by any conceivable alteration. 
In the human hand, each part is subordinated 
to a harmonious combination of function with 
another part, and each by a special modification 
of its own, so that every single bone is distin- 
guishable from another. Each digit has its own 
peculiar character and name ; and the thumb, 
which among the lower animals is the least 
important and constant of the five digits, be- 
comes in man the most important of all, making 
the member "a hand," properly so called, as 
Professor Sir Richard Owen has justly re- 
marked ; 36 the hand, which characterizes man 
alone, in justification of the words of the Persian 
poet, Omar-i-Khayyam, — 

" Ten Powers and nine Spheres, eight Heavens made He, 
And Planets seven of six sides we see ; 
Five Senses, and four Elements, three Souls, 
Two Worlds, but only one, O Man ! like thee." n 

34 op. cit. 3S op. cit. 

36 On the Nature of Limbs. (London, 1S49.) 

37 Whinfield's translation, verse 12c. (London, 18S3.) 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HAND. 35 

And when we come to consider the question, 
it is the thumb, and the thumb alone, that 
gives to the hand the finishing touch of its per- 
fection. Without the thumb, how impotent, 
comparatively speaking, the grasp of the. fin- 
gers ! but let the thumb be brought into oppo- 
sition and action, and the fingers find a fulcrum 
whence to apply their tremendous leverage, 
and the hand becomes, for its size, the most 
powerful mechanism of the human body. 

" But," people have said to me, " I can never 
see any difference between the hands of differ- 
ent people." That this should be literally the 
case, seems to me to be impossible, regard be- 
ing had to the fact that man is a sentient being, 
endowed with powers of observation. But a 
very little experience will enormously increase 
the acuteness of those powers of observation. 
And just as the specialist and the connoisseur 
come to distinguish infinitesimal variations in 
works of art, just as the banker's clerk detects 
the forged bank-note after it has deceived 
many people less accustomed to handling such 
things, the cheirosophist very soon comes to 
compare mentally the hands which he sees, 
with all those that he has ever seen before, until 
the classification of hands, according to the 



36 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

leading types to which I am about to draw your 
attention, becomes a purely mechanical opera- 
tion, and it becomes a familiar fact, that, just as 
our faces and characters present infinite varia- 
tions, so no two hands, or pairs of hands, are 
identical. 

There exists a very interesting account of a 
man discovering a murderer solely by the con- 
volutions of the skin upon the ball of the 
thumb. 

Visiting the scene of the murder shortly after 
its committal, the detective found upon the sill 
of the window by which the murderer had es- 
caped, an imprint of the spiral lines of the ball 
of his thumb left in blood. Tracing this care- 
fully, he tracked the murderer gradually from 
place to place, taking impressions of the balls 
of hundreds of thumbs on his way, under the 
pretence of telling men's fortunes by this means ; 
but he never found a figure to correspond with 
the one traced in blood at the scene of the mur- 
der, until he found the murderer himself, and 
then, suddenly accusing him, brought him to 
confession and the scaffold. 

This infinite variation is still more perceptible 
in the general formation of the hands ; and by 
a careful study and comparison the cheirosophist 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HAND. 37 

is enabled, as I shall presently show, to pro- 
nounce upon the capacities of the owner of the 
hand, just as the sportsman can tell from the 
foot of the dog or the horse the breed and capa- 
bilities of the animal. " Ex pede Herculem" is 
the motto upon which we proceed in cheiroso- 
phy, as in most other sciences ; and by studying 
the infinite variations of hands, you will come 
imperceptibly, and by degrees, to a perfect 
understanding of the varied characteristics of 
man. 

The gradual and perfect development of the 
hand is one of the most interesting studies of 
the physiologist. In the human embryo, when 
there appears no definite bodily formation, the 
rudimentary hand is plainly distinguishable. 
At birth, save for the disproportion of the palm 
to the fingers, the hand is perfectly formed, 
and the main osseous construction is complete 
at about the age of fourteen ; so that at four- 
teen the permanent shape given to the hand by 
the mental capacities may be read like an open 
book, by the expert in cheirosophy. This per- 
fected development of the hand is what must 
next occupy our attention ; though, be it under- 
stood, I do not propose to discourse here at 
length as I have done in " A Manual of Chei- 



38 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

rosophy," and in- "The Science of the Hand," 
upon the anatomy of the member. Still it is ne- 
cessary that, before impressing upon your minds 
the leading types of hands, you should be in a 
position to understand by the development of 
what tissues the variations of those types are 
produced. 

The skeleton of the hand consists of twenty- 
seven bones, eight composing the carpus or 
wrist, five composing the metacarpus or palm, 
twelve forming the phalanges of the fingers, 
and two forming the thumb. (Plate I.) The 
small bones of the carpus, fitting exquisitely 
into one another as they do, have their articu- 
lating surfaces covered with a layer of cartilage, 
so that the whole forms a quasi-solid and 
highly elastic mass, which is gifted with enor- 
mous strength, and which forms, as it were, a 
"buffer" which is capable of resisting a very 
powerful jar indeed. This mass of bones is 
not completely developed until the twelfth year, 
which accounts for the fact that until this age 
the wrist is comparatively weak. 

The five long bones of the metacarpus are 
slightly incurved, which imparts the familiar 
hollowness to the palm. At the lower ends of 
these bones, a little mass of bone, termed an 




Plate I.— THE BONES OF THE HAND. 
(From a male adult skeleton.) 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HAND. 4 1 

epiphysis, becomes gradually developed, and at- 
taches itself to the shaft at about the twentieth 
year. This adds enormously to the strength of 
the hand, so that it may be said that the perfect 
ossification of the hand does not take place until 
that time. 

The fingers consist, as we see, of three pha- 
langes, and the thumb of two, which correspond 
with the first and third of the fingers, the mid- 
dle phalanx being absent. Besides the little 
masses of bone to which I have alluded in the 
metacarpus, we often find among the tendons 
at the joint of the thumb, little embedded 
bones termed " sesamoid bones :" these enor- 
mously increase the strength, the leverage, of 
the joints ; so that where you see prominent 
joints upon the thumbs, you may always be sure 
of finding great manual strength. 

There are two principal layers of muscles in 
the hand, a superficial and a deep layer ; they 
are attached to the ends of the bones by means 
of the tendons and the little ridges called pro- 
cesses ; and the point concerning them, to which 
I desire to call your attention, is the exquisite 
mechanism and enormous strength of these 
tendons, which, radiating from the wrist, give 
unlimited variety, and almost unlimited force, 



42 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

to the movements of the muscles of the hands. 
You see these particularly when the back of 
the hand is made rigid. Observe also the 
powerful tendon of the thumb. 

The hand is perhaps more liberally supplied 
with arteries and veins than any other member 
of the body. It is, to a great measure, this fact 
which gives to the hand its intense keenness 
of sensibility of touch. There used to exist an 
interesting old superstition (which is, I regret 
to say, without foundation) to the effect that 
the third finger was connected directly with the 
heart by means of a vein. 38 

I should greatly like to discuss the nervous 
system of the hand, but the space at my disposal 
renders such a discussion impossible. We must, 
however, bear in mind that the nerves are more 
numerous, more delicate, and more highly de- 
veloped in the hand, than in any other part- of 
the human body, excepting perhaps the lips. 
In the hands and lips, the nerves are first de- 
veloped in the human subject; and it is for 
this reason that a baby always grasps with that 
nervous infantile clutch any thing which pre- 
sents itself, and carries it instinctively and im- 
mediately to its mouth for identification. This 

38 A Manual of Cheirosophy. ^37. 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HAND. 43 

nervous system reaches, as you know, its high- 
est development in the skin ; and it is the rows 
of touch corpuscles, the bulbs at the ends of 
the nerves, and the little sensitive heads called 
" pacinian bodies," which form the lines in the 
palms, with which we have presently to deal. 
These lines are formed by the culminating 
points of the sensory apparatus, and not, as 
people are so fond of saying, by the mere fold- 
ing of the hands. If proof were required of 
this statement, we should find it in the fact 
that these lines are found in the palms of the 
hands at birth, and even long before birth, in 
the human infant. 39 

Concerning the physiology of the hand, I have 
done. I particularly wanted, however, to give 
you a few leading facts in this connection, be- 
cause the formation, the physical composition, 
of the hand, like that of every part of the body, 
depends entirely upon the uses to which it is 
put, the circumstances and physical conditions 
which surround it ; in a word, upon the mental 
characteristics which prompt and direct those uses 
to which it is put. It is a well-known physio- 
logical fact, that upon the duties imposed upon 

39 Science of the Hand, p. 70, note 91 ; and Quain's Anatomy, 
vol. ii. p. 214. 



44 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

the limbs, their constitution and forms depend ; 
a fact of which I have treated at much length in 
"A Manual of Cheirosophy." I am therefore 
about to explain to you the science of cheiroso- 
phy by reading these data backward : that is 
to say, I am not going to tell you that certain 
mental and physical peculiarities will produce 
certain given forms of hand, but I am going to 
show you certain types of hands, and tell you 
what are the mental characteristics which have 
brought about the formation of those types, so 
that, by looking at the hand, you can tell at a 
glance the character, the instincts, the habits, 
and the intellectual faculties of such people as 
you may be thrown into contact with. 

This is what I have been leading up to ; this 
is the science of cheirosophy ; and this is the 
art of which I am about to lay before you what 
have been erroneously called "the secrets.'' 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 45 



PART III. 

ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS: 

CHEIROGNOMY. 

THAT man should be ever striving to attain 
to that class of knowledge which is known 
as "divination," is hardly strange; man's na- 
ture, as we know (alas, too well ! ) being ever 
to progress. How many are there to-day, who 
from their hearts would say, like Democritus, 
" I would rather be the possessor of one of the 
cardinal secrets of nature, than of the diadem 
of Persia." 

The time has passed when such studies as 
this should be met only with derision. Modern 
science has established the doctrine of the fixity 
of the Laws of Nature. We know that the 
events of our lives succeed one another in con- 
sequence of one another ; that the whole system 
of human existence obeys the great law of cause 
and effect; and judging a man's character by 
means of a glance at his physical peculiarities 
is, after all, merely placing implicit faith in what 



46 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

Newman Smyth has called " the divine veracity 
of nature." 40 The law of continual development, 
which has evolved astronomy out of astrology, 
chemistry out of alchemy, and craniology out of 
metoposcopy, has derived yet another science 
from an original, which was in its inception 
hardly more than the hap-hazard and conjectural 
vaticinations of the impudent charlatan ; has 
brought the Science of Cheirosophy out of the 
ruins of the ancient and mediaeval Palmistry. 

No one will deny that the use of an organ or 
member is indicated by its aspects ; and from 
the use indicated by the aspects, what is more 
easy to deduce than the mental characteristics 
which prompt that use ? (Lavater told Goethe, 
on one occasion, that when in the practice of 
his priestly office he held the bag in church, he 
tried to observe only the hands ; and he fully 
satisfied himself that in every individual the 
shape of the hand and of the fingers, and their 
action, were distinctly different and individually 
characteristic.) 

Again, it has been said that forced labor of a 
particular kind will entirely alter the shape of 
the hands. Now, this is not the case. Labor 
diametrically opposed to the inclinations of the 

40 Old Faiths in New Light (New York, 1879), P* 2 5 2 » 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 47 

mind, if forced upon an individual, will often 
modify the outlines of a hand ; but it will never 
alter the shape, so as to render it uncertain 
what was the natural bent of the inclination. 
The hand cannot alter. And it is here that I 
claim for cheirosophy an advantage over every 
other science of the kind. The phrenologist 
may be deceived by the growth of the hair ; the 
physiognomist may be led astray by a fixed and 
unnatural expression of the face : but the chei- 
rosophist finds in the hand an unvarying and 
unalterable indication of the character, a mirror 
whose images the bearer is powerless to distort. 
The science of Cheirosophy is divided into 
two great branches, — Cheirognomy, or the sci- 
ence of deducing the characteristics of man 
from the shape of his hands ; and Cheiromancy, 
or the art of expounding to man the events of 
his life, and the inner shades of his character, 
by an inspection of his palms. The latter of 
these two branches is of incomparable antiquity, 
but has been reduced within reasonable bounds, 
and invested with all the attributes of an exact 
science, only within the last fifty years, by 
Adrien Desbarrolles. The former is a compar- 
atively new science, having been formulated at 
the beginning of this century by M. le Capi- 



48 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

taine Casimir Stanislas d'Arpentigny, whose 
book, "La Science de la Main/' it has been 
my most interesting task and labor of love to 
translate and to annotate. 

M. d'Arpentigny first had his thoughts turned 
in this direction whilst serving with his regi- 
ment in the Peninsular war in the year 1820. 
One day, walking along one of the highroads of 
Andalusia, he was accosted by a gypsy woman, 
who offered to read for him his fortune upon 
his palm in exchange for the ordinary douceur. 
The language in which she clothed the indica- 
tions which she expounded, struck him pro- 
foundly ; and from that day forth he commenced 
to study the works of the older cheiromants, 
and* to observe carefully the hands of all with 
whom he was thrown in contact. Near where 
he lived in the country stood the house of 
a celebrated mechanician and mathematician, 
whose wife was imbued with a strong taste for 
art. The result of this opposition of taste in 
husband and wife was that they gave a series 
of alternately artistic and scientific receptions, 
to which Captain d'Arpentigny went indiffer- 
ently. By degrees, he found that he could class 
the various guests of his host and hostess by 
the aspects of their hands; and going a step 



ON THE SHAPES OE HANDS. 49 

farther, he found that hands might be classed, 
for practical purposes, under eight categories, — 
hands which belonged to any one of seven 
clearly accentuated and distinguished types, or 
to an eighth class consisting of hands which 
could not be properly placed in any of the 
preceding seven. 

The construction of these seven types, upon 
which I am about to embark, composes the 
science of Cheirognomy. Firstly, however, I 
will draw your attention to a few general indi- 
cations with regard to the hand considered as 
a whole. 

If the palm of the hand is narrow and skinny, 
it denotes always timidity, a feeble mind, and 
want of moral and intellectual force. If, on the 
other hand, it is too thick and big and strong, 
it denotes a low intelligence, and a tendency to 
brutality. A hollow, deep palm always signifies 
misery, ill-luck, and failures in life. 

Fingers are divided into two great classes : 
these are, fingers which are smooth, i.e., whose 
joints are not prominent ; and fingers which 
are knotty, i.e., whose joints stand out and are 
clearly visible. These latter, again, are subdi- 
vided into fingers with one joint only prominent, 
and those with both. 



50 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

Fingers which are smooth always denote a 
tendency to act upon instinct, upon impulse, 
upon intuition, rather than by reason, cal- 
culation, or deduction. If your fingers are 
smooth, you are highly endowed with more 
natural tact and grace than your knotty-fin- 
gered fellows. 

Fingers which are knotty denote always a 
tendency to order and arrangement. If your 
fingers are such, you will be gifted with good 
taste, which is born of reason, rather than 
with natural tact, which is instinctive. If the 
upper joint (A in Plate II.) is developed, it de- 
notes a well-ordered mind, a neat, administra- 
tive disposition, and reason in the ideas. If the 
loiver joint (B in Plate II.) is developed, this 
order and reason applies itself to things mate- 
rial rather than to things mental and psycho- 
logical. The lower joint, therefore, is termed 
the joint of material order; the upper one is 
termed the joint of philosophy. The material 
and worldly mind is denoted by a development 
of the lower, whilst the philosophic mind is 
denoted by a development of the upper. 

Both joints developed indicate the most 
pronounced instincts of order and philosophy. 
Such hands denote science, analysis, and a 




Plate II. - THE THUMB, THE JOINTS, AND THE 
LINES IN THE HAND. 



07/ THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 53 

strong love of and search after abstract and 
absolute truth. 

Art is the domain of smooth, science is the 
domain of knotty fingers. These facts must be 
clearly laid hold of at the outset, for they are 
the very corner-stones of cheirognomy. A 
jointed hand can never become smooth, but 
with age and experience a smooth hand may 
become knotty. This change takes place when 
our minds have become more sceptic, more rea- 
sonable, and more mechanical than they were 
when the illusions of youth tinged all things 
with the roseate tints of poetry and of inspira- 
tion. 

A hand is either long or short by comparison 
with its fellows, and the indications afforded by 
these peculiarities are of synthesis or of analy- 
sis. To explain : People with short fingers are 
quicker, more impulsive, act more on the spur 
of the moment, than people with long fingers ; 
they prefer generalities to details, jump at once 
to conclusions, and are quick at grasping all 
the bearings of a subject or scheme. Their 
judgment is quick, and their action is prompt, 
making up their minds the moment a subject 
presents itself to them. If, however, the fingers 
are very short, it results in cruelty and want 



54 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

of tact. Joints will assist the promptitude of 
short fingers, for the calculation of the joints 
will combine itself with the quickness of the 
short fingers. 

With long fingers, on the contrary, we find 
a love of detail, an instinct of minutiae, and a 
punctilious carefulness, which amounts some- 
times even to frivolity. Such persons are tidy 
as to their appointments, dignified, easily put 
out, and very careful about trifles. These char- 
acteristics will be intensified by a development 
of the upper joint in the fingers. Such people 
elaborate detail at the expense of the mass, are 
distrustful, and continually seek for inner mean- 
ings to things. M. d'Arpentigny himself had 
fingers of this description ; and the result was, 
that his book on the hand is filled with an elab- 
orate mass of details and side-issues, which is 
most distracting to the reader, unless his fin- 
gers harmonize with those of the author. Such / 
fingers often also betray cowardice, deceit, and 
affectation. 

Thus, therefore, large-handed people love 
details, and like things to be small and exqui- 
sitely finished and perfect, whilst small-handed 
people love masses, and like things to be large 
and grandiose. Minute workers always have 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 55 

large hands, whereas the constructors of colos- 
sal works always have small hands. Thus, 
small-handed people always write large, whilst 
large-handed people always write small. 

It is only the medium hand that can appre- 
ciate, at the same time, the mass and the details 
of a subject. 

Thick fingers, especially at their bases, invari- 
ably denote luxury, and, when highly developed, 
sensuality. Twisted and malformed fingers, 
with short nails, denote cruelty, tyranny, and a 
worrying, teasing disposition. If a hand is stiff 
and hard, opening with difficulty to its fullest 
extent, it betrays stubbornness of character, 
and avarice. If, on the contrary, the fingers, 
being very supple, have a tendency to turn back, 
they denote, as a rule, cleverness and inquisi- 
tiveness, nearly always generosity, ending in 
extravagance. 

If the fingers fit close together, it is a sign of 
avarice ; if they are very smooth and transpa- 
rent, they betray indiscretion and loquacity. If 
very twisted, so as to show considerable chinks 
between them, it is always a sign of that excess 
of sympathy, which is known to the vulgar as 
curiosity. 

In examining the hand, observe particularly 



56 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

whether or no the tips of the fingers are fur- 
nished with little fleshy protuberances, which 
stand out from the curved surfaces of the fin- 
ger-tips. These, when present, always denote 
sensitiveness, which is more or less keen as the 
protuberance is more or less developed. 

Beyond this, the tips of the fingers present 
four principal appearances. They are either 
spatulate (i.e., clubbed and broad), square, conic 
(or rounded like a thimble), or pointed. We 
shall consider the indications afforded by these 
formations, at greater length, when discussing 
the leading types of hands ; shortly, their sig- 
nifications are as follows : — 

If your fingers are broad — i.e., spatulate — 
at the tips, your main desire in life will be for 
action, activity, movement, locomotion, and 
manual exercises ; you will love things from the 
utilitarian point of view ; you will have tastes 
for agriculture, commerce, mechanics, indus- 
tries, and the applied sciences. Bearing in 
mind what has been said concerning the joints, 
if your spatulate fingers are smooth, you will do 
these things spontaneously; if knotty, reason- 
ably and by calculation. 

If your finger-tips are square, your prevailing 
characteristics will be symmetry and exactitude 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 57 

of habit and thought. You will have tastes for 
philosophy, languages, and logic ; in literature, 
you will require analysis and arrangement. 
You will be imbued with respect for established 
authority, and with a love of theories, of rheto- 
ric, and of order and tidiness : but, unless your 
joints be developed, this love of tidiness will go 
no further; i.e., it will not be practical. Both 
joints highly developed give one the most 
advanced passion for symmetry, regularity, and 
discipline. Square-fingered people are always 
musical : brilliant executants are always spatu- 
late-finge'red, but the most thorough musicians 
have always square hands. Singers, on the 
other hand, have always conic or pointed 
fingers. 

With conic fingers, all your instincts will be 
artistic, your whole soul will be given over to a 
love of the beautiful, and you are certain to be 
enthusiastic and romantic. Joints give a cer- 
tain moral force to such fingers as these, as also 
does a good-sized thumb. 

If your fingers are pointed, — i.e., long and 
finely drawn out, — yours will be exclusively the 
domain of idealism, of religious fervor, and of 
indifference to worldly interests. 

It must be borne in mind, that an exaggera,- 



58 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

tion of any of these formations indicates an 
excess, a diseased condition of the instincts indi- 
cated by the formation. Thus, an exaggerated 
pointedness will indicate excessive romanticism, 
folly, and imagination, which develops into the 
wildest eccentricity and into deceit. 

The color of the hands varies so continually 
with the temperature, that it is practically im- 
possible to lay down definite readings for it. 
But this one indication is infallible : if the hands 
are always white, never or hardly ever changing 
color, it is a sure sign of egoism, of selfish- 
ness, and of a want of real sympathy with the 
troubles of others. 

As in physiology, so in Cheirosophy, the 
thumb is by far the most important part of the 
hand. It is divided into three parts : the root, 
or Mount of Venus ; the second phalanx (C in 
Plate II.), which is that of logic ; and the first 
(D in Plate II.), which is that of will. The 
second phalanx indicates our greater or less 
amount of perception, judgment, and reasoning 
power ; the first, by its greater or less develop- 
ment, indicates the strength of our will, our 
decision, and our capacity for taking the initia- 
tive. If the nailed phalanx is short, weak, and 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 59 

thin, it betrays feebleness of will, want of decis- 
ion, and of promptitude in action, with want 
of self-reliance and constancy. With such a 
phalanx of will, if the lower phalanx (of logic) 
is long and strong, you will be able to give ex- 
cellent reasons for your lack of decision. Your 
common-sense will be excellent, but you will not 
have sufficient strength of will-power to put 
your common-sense into practice, and act boldly 
on the suggestions of your better judgment. 

If, on the contrary, the phalanx of will be 
long, and that of logic be short, you will be 
quick, active, impulsive, and tenacious of opin- 
ions and purpose ; but, lacking the logic to guide 
your will aright, you will run into the danger 
of unreasoning obstinacy. 

1 If the phalanx of will is not long, but broad, 
it indicates always obstinacy ; and if this breadth 
is excessive, it betrays passion, furious impulse, 
tyranny, brutality, and even a tendency to 
murder. 

When the upper joint of the thumb turns 
back, it is always a sign of extravagance, of lux- 
ury, and of generosity carried to an extreme. It 
will therefore be understood, as a generality, 
that a large or long thumb indicates strength of 
character, and individuality, whilst a small or 



60 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

short thumb indicates the reverse. I have dis- 
cussed all the minutiae of the combinations of 
large and small thumbs, with other formations 
of the hand, in my book, " A Manual of Chei- 
rosophy." 

The consistency of hands is a great point 
to be noticed ; indicating, as it does, the taste 
which the subject possesses for physical exer- 
tion. Soft hands are the indications of a quiet j 
temperament, inclining to laziness and even to 
lethargy; whilst hard hands denote always an 
imperious desire for action, and a love of hard 
physical exercise or manual labor. These dif- 
ferences show themselves in the way various 
subjects put their tendencies into action. Thus 
an artist with hard hands will depict scenes of 
action, of real life, of movement, rather than the 
ideal, imaginative pictures of the soft-handed 
artist. The soft spatulate hand will love the 
spectacle of action, and appreciate physical ac- 
tivity in others, rather than practise it himself. 

Soft-handed subjects are always greedy of the 
marvellous, and fond of occult sciences, from 
their love of contemplation : whereas very hard 
hands are always superstitious, by reason of 
their want of reflection to make them other- 
wise. Soft hands are more capable of tender- 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 6 1 

ness and affection than of true love, but hard 
hands are more capable of lasting affection than 
of tenderness or passion. 

Smoothness and a gentle firmness of the 
hands always indicate delicacy of mind, whilst 
dryness and roughness always denote rudeness 
and insensibility of mind. A wrinkled hand, if 
it is soft, denotes sensitiveness and uprightness, , 
but if it is hard it betrays pugnacity and irrita- 
bility. 

The gestures of the hand speak a language of 
their own, which I have made the subject of a 
complete section in my " Manual of Cheiroso- 
phy." To keep the hands always closed, de- 
notes secretiveness, and often untruth. If you 
think a man is telling you a lie, look at his 
hands ; he cannot lie with his hands open. 
The same remark applies when the hands are 
kept studiously quiet and impassive : this also 
denotes vanity and self-consciousness. 

But little can be learned from the nails, but a 
few of their aspects have very marked and 
infallible significations. Nails which are short 
and broad indicate a spirit of criticism and pug- 
nacity, a love of domination and control, and a 
tendency to fidgetiness and a meddlesome dis- 



62 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

position. Women with short nails are gener- 
ally inclined to be termagants. The good 
points of short nails are, of course, quickness 
of intellect, and perspicuity ; in a good hand 
they will merely denote a spirit of sarcasm 
and of good-humored irony. 

Long, curved nails betray cruelty of disposi- 
tion. The finer and more delicate the shape of 
the nails, the finer and more delicate the mind 
indicated by them. The habit of biting the 
nails, it is hardly necessary to remark, results 
from nervousness and a self-worrying disposition. 
These are the main indications which may be 
read in a moment from a casual glance at the 
hands. We will now pass shortly in review 
the seven leading types of hands. 

The seven types of hands are the elementary, 
the spatulate, the conic, the square, the knotty, 
and the pointed, with a seventh hybrid type 
which I have called the mixed hand. The Ele- 
mentary hand (Plate III.) is so called from its 
belonging exclusively to the lowest grade of 
human intelligence, and argues merely sufficient 
intellect for the support of human life. The 
fingers are short, and thick, and stiff ; the thumb 
is short, and slightly turned back ; the palm is 




Plate ni. — THE ELEMENTARY HAND. 

Denoting the lowest grade of intelligence, sloth, 
dulness, and coarseness. 

(From the cast of an Esquimau hand.) 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 65 

large and thick and hard, and, #s a rule, longer 
than the fingers, as is the case in an infant's 
hand. 

Such hands are very rare indeed in England 
or America, and, indeed, are hardly to be met 
with at all in the pure state in latitudes as south- 
ern, and in climates as clement, as ours. They 
betoken a crass and sluggish intelligence. They 
have no imaginations or passions beyond the 
merely brutish ones, no instincts of cultivation, 
and hardly the instincts of human society, 
Though, as I have said, the pure elementary 
type does not exist among us, we often find 
hands that come within measurable distance of 
it, and then we find a very distinguishable tend- 
ency to the characteristics which I have named. 

The next type, the Spatulate (Plate IV.), or 
Active hand, is very much more common among 
us. This hand has the tips of its fingers slight- 
ly flattened out like the spatula with which the 
chemist mixes his drugs, and from this it de- 
rives its name. The thumb is rather large, and 
the whole hand has a tendency to hardness. 
The main characteristics of the type are action, 
movement, energy. Such subjects are resolute, 
self-confident, active, rather than delicate-mind- 
ed ; constant and faithful, but unromantic in 



66 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

love. If such a subject has a small thumb, 
much of his energy and activity will be mis- 
directed or aimless, though a long phalanx of 
logic will go far towards remedying this defect. 
Smooth fingers will give him elegance and spon- 
taneity in his active pursuits, and inspiration in 
the direction of his exertions. Spatulate sub- 
jects make the best colonists, as they only look 
at the useful side of things, attaching themselves 
to countries only for the useful things they de- 
rive from them. They are very slightly sensual, 
and like travelling about and shifting for them- 
selves. They like colossal architecture rather 
than beauty of design, wealth rather than luxury, 
quantity rather than quality. People talk a good 
deal of nonsense about a fine hand as an indica- 
tion of ancient race. As a matter of fact, the 
pure descendants of the old fighting Saxon nobil- 
ity are always distinguishable by their spatulate 
hands. In religion, spatulate-handed subjects 
are conventional above all things, Protestants 
rather than Catholics. It is thus that these 
hands are in a majority in Northern latitudes; 
whereas in Southern climes, where the atmos- 
phere produces a more romantic turn of mind, 
the Catholic religion, and pointed or conical 
hands, have the numerical advantage. Promi- 




Plate TV.— THE SPATULATE HAND. 

Denoting action, movement, energy, self-reliance, 
and locomotion. 



(The hand of the " great" Duke of Wellington.) 



ON THE SHAPES OE HANDS. 69 

nent joints give an intense love of science to 
these hands, and make them expert in all 
mechanical or applied sciences. Such men are 
the best engravers, and the readiest inventors 
in mechanical arts and sciences. Softness, of 
course, as I have said, greatly modifies the 
active qualities of the type. 

Next to this, and by way of contrast, we have 
the Conic, or Artistic hand (Plate V.). Of this 
hand the fingers are always slightly broad at 
the lower phalanges, diminishing gently to the 
tips, which are conic or rounded. The joints 
are not prominent, the thumb is generally small, 
and the palm fairly developed. If your hand 
presents these peculiarities of formation, you 
are ruled by impulse and instinct, rather than 
by reason or calculation ; you are attracted by 
the beautiful, rather than by the useful, aspects 
of life and matter ; you are attracted by ease, 
novelty, and liberty. Enthusiastic and impul- 
sive, rather than forcible or determined, you 
are at heart a pure Bohemian, and your imagina- 
tion is as warm as your heart is cold ! 

If the formations of your type are still more 
accentuated, that is, if the palm is larger, the 
fingers more drawn out, the thumb still smaller, 
you are still more the slave of your passions 



70 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

and your impulses. Your enthusiasm is higher, 
your love warmer and shallower ; you are gen- 
erous to a fault, painfully sensitive, and easily 
moved. With such a hand, you are right to 
strew the pathway of your life with roses ; but 
you must not forget that when the petals have 
fallen from the wreath of roses, it becomes a 
crown of thorns. 

Unfortunately, if the thumb is very weak, 
and other bad signs, which I shall presently 
expound, appear in the hand, you will often 
find in such subjects only the bad qualities of 
the type, — sensuality, laziness, egotism, eccen- 
tricity, dissipation, and deceit ; but a hand must 
be very bad to show all this. The main char- 
acteristics, the guiding principles, of the type 
are, love of beauty and the beautiful, preference 
of the ideal over the real, intuition, impulse, and 
selfishness. 

The next type is that of the Square, or Useful 
hand (Plate VI.). This hand is generally large, 
rather than small ; the palm broad ; the lower 
joint, that of material order, developed : the 
tips of the fingers square, i.e., neither pointed 
nor spread out ; the thumb rather large ; the 
palm thick, hollow, and rather firm. 

The leading instincts on which this hand 




Plate V. - THE CONIC HAND. 

Denoting art, brilliancy, love of beauty, enthusiasm, 
and genezvsity. 

(The hand of Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A.) 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 73 

founds its characteristics are perseverance, fore- 
sight, order, and regularity. To these hands, 
the useful is far preferable to the beautiful. 
Their great passions are for organization, ar- 
rangement, classification, regularity of form and 
outline, and the acceptation of things pre- 
scribed and understood as customary. They 
are great disciplinarians, and are strongly im- 
bued with a sense of the fitness of things ; 
they prefer privileges to complete liberty, and 
have a passion for experiences of all kinds. 

If your hands are of this type, you are a 
slave to arrangement ; you have a place for 
every thing, and every thing is in its place. 
Unless your joints are well developed, it is 
quite possible that your drawers and cupboards 
may be untidy ; but you will be outwardly in 
perfect order, and, amid the chaos of your pos- 
sessions, you will always know where to find 
every thing, for memory is one of the most 
precious attributes of the type. You will be 
handy with your fingers, tidy in person, and 
always most particular about your general 
arrangements. You are suspicious, and quietly 
cunning. Vigilant, and a complete master of 
intrigue, you are a flatterer, and you like to be 
flattered ; and you are also quietly and unosten- 
tatiously ambitious. 



74 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

If the joint of order is absent, yours is a 
most enviable mind ; for you have the strongest 
aptitude for metaphysical and abstract sciences, 
with a natural capacity for checking your tend- 
ency to enthusiasm. This is the cleverest 
hand that exists. Heaven help you if with a 
square hand both your joints are developed! 
you will be the most aggressively methodical 
creature that ever existed, living by rote and 
rule, and doing every thing by pre-arranged 
order. Good sense and reasonable egoism are 
the main features of the type. 

The next is the Knotty or Philosophic type 
of hand (Plate VII.) : its appearance is most dis- 
tinctive. The palm is large and elastic ; both 
joints are highly developed, especially the upper 
one, which, with the half-conic, half-square for- 
mation of the tips, gives a curious clubbed oval 
appearance to the fingers. The thumb is large, 
having its two phalanges of equal length. 

The great characteristics of this hand are 
analysis, meditation, philosophy, and deduction ; 
and these continually lead to deism and de- 
mocracy. Their main and vital instinct is, 
however, a love of and search after abstract and 
absolute truth. The joints give to tKe hand 
calculation, method, and deduction. The quasi- 




Plate VI.- THE SQUARE HAND. 

Denoting 1 order, arrangement, method, symmetry 
of form and outline, and discipline. 

(The hand of the author.) 



O.V THE SHAPES OF HANDS. J? 

conic formation of the finger-tips give it the 
instincts of poetry and real beauty, and the 
thumb gives it perseverance. Such subjects 
pay more attention to the significance of things 
than to their appearances ; their literature, 
therefore, is notable for its clearness and util- 
ity, rather than for its form or literary style. 
They require to account for every thing. They 
require reason in every thing. They form their 
own opinions on all subjects, without reference 
to those of other people, and form them after 
the most careful analysis and consideration of 
the questions involved. 

Subjects of the philosophic type are essen- 
tially sceptical in religion, for they refuse to look 
at the emotional side of any thing. They are 
therefore great advocates of social and religious 
freedom, being moderate in all their pleasures. 
The smaller the philosophic hand, the keener 
its search after the attainment of truth ; the 
larger it is, the more analytical it becomes. 

The last type, the Pointed or Psychic hand 
(Plate VIII. ), is the most beautiful and delicate, 
but, alas ! the most ideal and useless of all. 
Small and delicate, with a thin palm, and fine, 
long and pointed fingers, its joints are barely 
visible, and it has a pretty little thumb. The 
only thing to regret about it is its rarity. 



78 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

To these subjects belongs the domain of the 
beautiful ideal. They have all the artistic in- 
stinct of their conic-handed fellows, with none 
of their bad points. They are guided entirely 
by their idealism, their impulse, and their in- 
stinct of abstract right. They never command, 
for they are above any such earthly aggrandize- 
ment, or material interests of any kind ; but 
they always inspire respect, if only on account 
of the beauty of their brilliant incomprehensi- 
bility. In politics and religion, they acknowl- 
edge no leadership, being guided only by their 
innate sense of right and wrong. Theirs is the | 
talent of inspired lyric poetry, and they possess, 
with this faculty, the more important one of 
communicating their enthusiasm to others. It 
is this that makes them such splendid orators 
and preachers. These are the men who have a 
real call to the ministry. I once heard the late 
Henry Ward Beecher say, that when God calls 
a man to preach, he generally calls a congrega- . 
tion to listen to him ; when this happens, you 
may expect to see pointed fingers. Other kinds 
of men often say they have heard a call : maybe 
they have, but it wasn't for them, it was for 
somebody else ! A joint will sometimes appear 
in a hand of this kind ; this is fatal. Such a 





Plate VIL — THE KNOTTY HAND. 

Denoting philosophy, analysis, logic, deduction, science, 
research, and truth. 

(The hand of Sir Richard Owen, F.R.S., K.C.B.) 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 8 1 

subject will be prone to rush from one extreme 
to another ; he will be credulous, greedy of the 
marvellous, discontented, and eccentric. Psy- 
chic-handed people should never go beyond their 
own intuitions, for they have not the gifts of 
reason and of analysis. Sometimes, however, 
both joints will appear in such a hand; this will 
give doubt, fear, dejection, and revolutionary 
ideas (but not practice). The only redeeming 
point of such a hand is its capacity for inven- 
tion, which is not, however, supported by the 
necessary practical talents. 

Finally, I must call your attention to the 
hybrid type, known as the Mixed hand ; that 
is to say, hands which being, as it were, inter- 
mediate, so nearly resemble more than one type, 
as to admit the possibility of their being mis- 
taken for either. Thus a conic hand may be 
nearly pointed, a square nearly spatulate, a 
spatulate nearly philosophic, and so on. In 
such cases the peculiarities of both types are 
present in the character, and it is the task of 
the cheirosophist so to combine them as to give 
a true analysis of the subject under examina- 
tion. Such subjects may generally be described 
as " jacks of all trades, and masters of none;" 
they attain to skill in a variety of pursuits, but 



82 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

seldom to excellence in any one. They are gen- 
erally amusing, but seldom instructive. Their 
great advantage is their adaptability and readi- 
ness to suit themselves to any company in 
which they may find themselves ; but these 
advantages £re generally combined with lack of 
sincerity, application, or perseverance. 

This is the Science of Cheirognomy. From 
what I have said, you ought now to be able to 
tell, by a rapid glance at the hands, the char- 
acter of any one into whose company you are 
thrown. In my "Manual of Cheirosophy," I 
have devoted a special section to the minutiae 
of Cheirognomy, as applied to the hands of the 
softer sex. It is, however, only necessary for 
me to say here that the same remarks apply to 
women as to men, save that the qualities of 
the more robust types are less, and those of the 
gentler types are more, developed among them 
than among us. It should also be remarked, 
that the motives of the action of women must 
be sought for in instinct, impulse, and intuition, 
rather than in calculation or reason. It is, I 
think, very generally admitted, that the instinct 
of a woman is far superior to any amount of 
reason, and this is why they usually dispense 




Plate VIII. — THE POINTED HAND. 

Denoting poetry, enthusiasm, idealism, abstract right, 
impulse, and high ideals. 

(The hand of " Violet Fane," the poetess.) 



ON THE SHAPES OF HANDS. 85 

with the latter commodity. A ribald friend of 
mine used to say that he never knew but one 
woman who could understand reason, and she 
wouldn't listen to it. It will, therefore, strike 
the observer as natural that smooth fingers are 
in a majority among women, rather than promi- 
nently jointed ones. 

I turn now to a branch of the science which, 
though not so useful, is perhaps even more inter- 
esting than Cheirognomy. I mean, to Cheiro- 
mancy, whereby, in examining the mounts and 
lines of the palm, the past, the present, and even 
the future, may be explained and foretold. 



86 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 



PART IV. 

CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 

THERE have not been wanting authorities 
who have claimed for cheiromancy, or, as 
it used to be called, " cheiroscopy," the support 
of Scripture, basing their arguments upon that 
oft-cited passage of the Book of Job, which I 
have dissected and discussed at such length in 
"A Manual of Cheirosophy," 4I and " The Sci- 
ence of the Hand." The passage to which I 
refer is cited in error, and there is no doubt 
now that the science of cheirosophy is not 
even remotely alluded to. But there is equally 
no doubt that this science is of incomparable 
antiquity; and Juvenal tells us, that in his 
time, — 

" The middle sort, who have not much to spare, 
To cheiromancer's cheaper art repair, 
Who clap the pretty palm to make the lines more fair." 42 

The works of Aristotle, as I said some time 
ago, are full of references to the science ; and 

41 PP- 55— 5S. 42 Satyra vi., 1. 5S1. (Dryden's translation.) 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 87 

it is interesting to know that one of the first 
block books ever produced by the printing-press 
(before the introduction of movable types) was 
"Die Kunst Ciromantia," written by Johann 
Hartlieb in 1448, and published at Augsburg 
in 1495. 

The absolute origin of the art, panoplied, as 
Mr. Edgar Saltus would say, "in the dim mag- 
nificence of myth," was probably Oriental. Mr. 
Herbert Giles, Her Majesty's consul at Shanghai, 
than whom probably no greater authority on 
Chinese culture exists, tells me that the science 
was practised in China many centuries before 
Christ. Philip Baldoeus alludes to its antiquity 
in India, in the seventeenth century ; 43 and we 
know that Apollonius of Tyana 44 studied magic 
in the time of our Lord, among the Brahmins 
in that country. Whatever its antiquity, the 
more one studies it, the more one is amazed by 
the truths — the inexplicable truths — which it 
teaches us. 

It is strenuously objected to this science, 
that it professes to predict with certainty 
future events. Now, this is what it does not do ; 

43 Wahrhaftige aiisflirliche Beschreibung der ost-indischen Kiist- 
en Malabar, etc. (Amsterdam, 1672), cap. v. p. 513. 

44 William Godwin: Lives of the Necromancers (London, 1S34), 
p. 158. 



88 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

but it teaches men to observe the great laws 
of Cause and Effect so closely as to be able 
to predict the almost inevitable results of exist- 
ing circumstances. Cheirosophy aims at ascer- 
taining the established conjunctions, which in 
their turn establish the order of the universe. 

They say it is impossible to predict a future 
malady or death. What is more reasonable to 
believe than that, of a future malady, the germ 
already lurks in the system, which must ulti- 
mately supervene, and may prove fatal ? Such 
a germ as this must affect the universal nerve- 
fluid, the vital principle ; and what is more 
likely than that this affection should be visible 
at the point where the nerves are most numer- 
ous and apparent, and that is — in the palm of 
the hand ? 

Then, so surely as the future exists already 
for us, let us minutely examine the present, 
which is forming and modifying and developing 
that future. Our thoughts are free, as Sir 
Richard Owen has said, to soar as far as any le- 
gitimate analogy may seem to guide them rightly 
across the boundless ocean of unknown truth ! 

Cheirosophy is not fatalism. It never says 
what shall be, shall be : it merely warns us 
of what will happen if we pursue the course we 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 89 

are adopting. If we neglect the warning, as 
I have constantly known people to do, turn- 
ing aside with a lofty smile, we have only our- 
selves to blame when the events, which we 
might easily have averted by an effort of will, 
supervene to our harm and annoyance. It is 
true, that certain signs have been handed down 
from generation to generation, such as the indi- 
cations of coming accidents and sudden death ; 
and, in numberless instances, my own personal 
experiences have proved the correctness of 
these signs, for the explanation of which it is 
impossible to hazard any reasonable conjecture. 
These facts, of which I will shortly give you 
a few instances, simply exist as facts, and as 
such we are bound to accept them. 

As to the expounding of the past, I would 
argue, in the same way, that great events prin- 
cipally affect our nerves, and this affection of 
the nerves produces strange and infinitely varied 
combinations of the lines in the palm. If trou- 
ble can leave its marks upon the face, as Byron 
says, — 

" The intersected lines of thought, — 
Those furrows which the burning share 
Of sorrow ploughs untimely there ; 
Scars of the lacerated mind, 
Which the soul's war doth leave behind," — 



90 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

why should not the same effect be produced 
upon the hands, which are so much more sensi- 
tive than the face ? 

How continually one is told, by some one 
who imagines he has discovered a brand-new 
argument, that the lines are simply the result 
of the folding of the hands! The evidence 
against this is infinite. Quain has told us 45 
that the lines are clearly traced even before 
a man is born ; and it is easy to verify the fact, 
that the hands of women, and of men who 
never use their hands in active exercises, are 
always covered with lines, whereas the hands 
of labourers and men who work hard with them, 
are nearly always almost destitute of lines at 
all. It is activity of brain, and not of body, that 
causes the lines to appear ; otherwise, how ac- 
count for lines between the joints of the fin- 
gers, and in directions in which no folding 
could ever, by any possibility, take place ? 

No : the hands fold, it is true, upon some of 
the major lines, but the lines are not caused by 
the folding. However, let us get on. Why 
seek to account for facts, which, being existent, 
need no proof? Let us accept the axiom laid 
down by Herbert Spencer, by Henry Drum- 

45 Ouain's Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 214. 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 9 1 

mond, and by a host of the finest intellects of 
the day, that all science is more or less a mys- 
tery. 46 We can only tabulate facts, and, after 
letting them speak for themselves, draw our 
own deductions. I have advanced all the data 
that can be necessary, in the introductory argu- 
ments to my two larger works upon this science. 
Now I propose to lay before you what actually 
is the case, in the hope that you will not refuse 
to believe acknowledged truth, as did the hard- 
headed scientists of even so late as the end 
of the last century, who denied that aerolites 
either had fallen or could fall. This is not a 
superstition, this science of mine. But, if it 
were, superstition will only come to an end 
when exact science — if such exists — will take 
the trouble to examine without prejudice the 
facts it has hitherto distinctly denied ; that is to 
say, when it will approach them with the admis- 
sion that things are not necessarily untrue be- 
cause they are unexplained ! 

It is necessary to say, at the outset of the 
study of this branch of the science of chei- 
rosophy, that the names of the planets applied 

46 Compare these passages: Herbert Spencer's Study of Sociology 
(London, 1873), chap, iv., and Henry Drummond's Natural Law in 
the Spiritual World (London, 1S84), pp. 28 and SS. 



92 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

to the mounts and some of the lines of the palm 
are not astrological. When I speak of the mount 
of Jupiter, the plain of Mars, and the line of 
Saturn, I do not mean that the planets have 
as has been believed, and, I regret to say, writ- 
ten — any thing to do with those parts of the 
hand. The explanation of these terms is, that 
on certain parts of the hand are found the indi- 
cations of certain temperaments, which we have 
come to look upon as peculiar to certain deities 
of the heathen mythology : so that when I say 
the mount of Venus, I mean that part of the 
hand upon which are found the indications of 
love ; the plain of Mars, the part denoting 
audacity and warlike instinct ; the line of Saturn 
indicates fate, and so on. 

The five digits of the hand have, or may have, 
at their bases, mounts ; i.e., little protuberances 
of muscle, each of which has a certain signifi- 
cation, and is called after a particular planet 
(Plate IX.). They are as follows : under the 
thumb, the mount of Venus (A) ; under the first 
finger, the mount of Jupiter (B) ; under the 
second, that of Saturn (C) ; under the third, that 
of Apollo, or the Sun (D) ; under the fourth, that 
of Mercury (E). Below this, on the hand, comes 
the mount of Mars (F) ; below that, again, the 




Plate IX. - THE MOUNTS OF THE PALM. 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 95 

mount of the Moon (G) ; and in the centre of 
the hand, the plain of Mars (H). The hand is 
crossed by six principal lines (Plate II.) : the 
line of life, which surrounds the thumb (a a) ; 
the line of head, which starts at the same point, 
and goes to the mount of Mars (b b) ; the line of 
heart, almost parallel above the line of head 
(c c) ; the line of Saturn, or fortune, which goes 
from the wrist to the mount of that name (d d) ; 
the line of Apollo, or art, which goes from the 
plain of Mars to the mount of Apollo (e e) ; and 
the line of liver, or health, which goes from the 
base of the line of life to the mount of Mars or 
of Mercury (ff). To these are added two in- 
ferior sets of lines : the girdle of Venus, which 
encircles the mounts of Saturn and of Apollo 
(g g) y and the rascettes, which appear at the 
wrists (k k). These two latter are not invariably 
found in the hands. 

Every mount betrays certain characteristics 
in a greater or less state of development, and 
the mount which is highest in a hand gives 
the keynote to the character of the subject. A 
hand has seldom only one mount developed, and 
any well-formed mount will modify the signifi- 
cation of the principal one. Sometimes, instead 
of being high in a hand, the mount is covered 



g6 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

with lines (E, Plate IX.). This has the same 
effect as high development, and makes a mount 
the principal one in the hand. All the mounts 
equally developed indicate an evenly balanced 
mind, whilst no mounts at all betray a dull, 
negative character. A mount displaced towards 
another, instead of being immediately beneath 
the finger, takes an influence from that mount 
towards which it inclines. If, not only is it 
absent, but a hollow occupies its place, it de- 
notes the converse, the opposite, of the qualities 
of the mount. 

The lines in a hand should be, clear, red, and 
apparently marked, not ragged, or broken, or 
indistinct. Pale lines in a hand indicate a 
phlegmatic disposition, and, in a man, effemi- 
nacy. A sister line following the course of 
a principal line (i i in Plate II.) will always 
strengthen and support it. A tassel at the 
end always indicates a disorder of the quality. 
Ascending branches {a in Plate X.) always an- 
nounce a favorable issue of the qualities of a 
line; descending {b, Plate X.), the reverse. A 
chained formation indicates obstacles and worries 
connected therewith (c in Plate X.). 

Beneath the first finger we find the mount of 
Jupiter. The predominance of this mount in 




Plate X.-THE LINES AND MOUNTS. 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 99 

a hand denotes ambition, honor, gayety, and 
religion. It also, if very high, denotes love of 
pomp and ceremony, with a certain amount of 
pride ; and in excess the mount gives tyranny, 
arrogance, and ostentation ; if the fingers are 
pointed, ostentation. Complete absence of the^ 
mount betrays idleness, egoism, want of dignity, 
and even vulgarity. Confused lines on the 
mount indicate a continued and unsatisfied am- 
bition. A cross on the mount denotes a happy 
marriage (a in Plate XlJft If a star be there 
as well (b in Plate XL), the ^marriage is also 
brilliant and ambitious. A spot on the mount 
indicates disgrace. 

The next mount is that of Saturn (c, Plate IX.). 
When this mount is the highest in the hand, 
we find in the subject caution, prudence, and a 
fatality either for good or evil. Such subjects 
are sensitive and punctilious, given to occult 
science, to incredulity, melancholy, and timid- 
ity. They love solitude and a quiet life, taking 
naturally to agriculture, mineralogy, and kin- 
dred sciences. Developed to excess, the mount 
denotes a profound melancholy and morose taci- 
turnity, remorse and morbid imagination, fear 
of death, and, at the same time, a tendency 
to suicide. Absence of the mount denotes an 



IOO PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

insignificant, uneventful disposition. A single 
line on the mount signifies good luck ; many 
(c y Plate XI.) signify bad luck ; and a spot on 
the mount denotes a great misfortune. Dis- 
placed towards Jupiter, it argues a great good 
fortune. 

Under the third finger we find the mount of 
the Sun. When it is prominent in a hand, it 
argues a powerful love of art, and indicates suc- 
cess, glory, brilliancy, good fortune, the results 
of genius "and intelligence. Such subjects are 
inventors and imitators, prone to shortness of 
temper, pride, eloquence, and a tendency to 
religion. In excess, the mount indicates love of 
wealth, extravagance, luxury, fatuity and envy, 
quick temper and frivolity. These subjects are 
also boastful and conceited. Absence of the 
mount denotes dulness, and a complete absence 
of the artistic instinct. A single line on the 
mount denotes fortune and glory ; two lines (d 
in Plate XL) indicate talent, but probable failure 
in life ; and a confusion of lines (e in Plate X.) 
denotes a love of art as a science, and an ana- 
lytical disposition. A spot on the mount always 
announces a disgrace. 

At the outside of the hand is the mount of 
Mercury. Its prominence in a hand denotes 




Plate XL -THE LINES AND MOUNTS. 



.*> 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. IO3 

science, spirit, eloquence, commercial capacity, 
speculation, industry, invention, and agility. 
Such subjects are always quick and clever at 
occupations which require skill, and they are 
selfishly good-natured ; i.e., they are good to 
their fellow-men when it amuses them to be 
so, not when it goes against their inclinations. 
Excess of the mount is very bad, denoting theft, 
cunning, deceit, and treachery. Such subjects 
are always charlatans, and prone to the more 
evil forms of occultism and superstition. Com- 
plete absence of the mount betrays inaptitude 
for science, and no capacity for commerce. 
Many lines on the mount (d, Plate X.) denote 
science and eloquence ; little flecks and dashes 
indicate a babbler and chatterer. Lines on the 
percussion indicate liaisons and affairs of the 
heart if horizontal (e, Plate XL), children if 
vertical. A marriage line terminated by a star 
proves that the love-affair has terminated, with a 
death (/, Plate XL). A great star crossing the 
vertical lines on the percussion indicates steril- 
ity. If the mount is quite smooth, it announces 
extreme coolness and sang-froid. 

Below this we have the mount of Mars (F, 
Plate IX.), and the immediately contiguous part 
of the palm is called the plain of Mars (H, Plate 



104 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

IX.). The mount denotes resistance, the plain 
aggression. If the mount is prominent, you are 
defensive rather than offensive ; if the plain is 
developed, we find an aggressive, encroaching 
spirit. A subject with the mount of Mars high 
in the hand is cool-tempered, magnanimous, 
and generous. If it is excessive, i.e., spreading 
into the plain of Mars, he is furious, brusque, 
cruel, violent, and defiant in manner. The 
absence of the mount denotes cowardice and 
childishness. 

Lower still upon the hand we have the mount 
of the Moon. This indicates imagination, poesy, 
melancholy, a love of mystery, solitude, and 
silence, and a tendency to % revery. Such sub- 
jects love harmony, rather than melody, in 
music ; they are capricious, changeable, and in- 
clined to be idle ; fond of voyaging, mystical, 
and void of self-confidence or perseverance. In 
a hard hand we get a dangerous activity and 
imagination. Excess of the mount gives irrita- 
bility, discontent, superstition, fanaticism, and 
error; absence argues want of imagination and 
of poetry in the disposition. Lines on the mount 
(g, Plate XI.) give prophetic dreams, visions, pre- 
sentiments, and the like. These are also shown 
by a curved line extending to the mount of Mer- 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 105 

cury (/ in Plate X.). Horizontal lines from 
the percussion (g in Plate X.) denote voyages ; 
terminating in a star (/i, Plate X.) these lines 
indicate a voyage which will be terminated by 
death. A large star on the mount (h 9 Plate XL) 
denotes hysteria, and, with other concomitant 
signs, madness. Many crossing lines (i, Plate 
XL) betray self-torment and worry. An angle 
or circle on the mount denotes a danger of 
death by drowning. 

The last mount with which we have to deal 
is that of Venus, at the root of the thumb. 
This mount gives to a subject beauty, grace, 
benevolence, melody in music (as opposed to 
harmony), and, indeed, all the more feminine 
attributes of character. Such people are great 
lovers of and seekers after pleasure, are gay 
and always charming. In excess, the mount 
betrays debauchery, effrontery, license, incon- 
stancy, and other excesses. Absence of the 
mount shows coldness, laziness, and selfishness. 
Lines on the mount always indicate warmth of 
passion and strong affection. A line extending 
to the line of head indicates a worry (j, Plate 
XL) ; extending to the mount of Mercury, it 
denotes a marriage (k k in Plate XL), so does a 
strong line coming from the phalanx of logic to 



106 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

the line of life (/ /, Plate XL) which surrounds 
the mount of Venus. Islands on the mount 
(z, Plate X.) denote opportunities of marriage 
which have been missed. 

These are the interpretations of the mounts. 
I shall conclude this opusculum by noticing the 
principal lines and their significations. 

The most important line in the hand is, of 
course, the Line of Life {a a in Plate II.), which 
surrounds the mount of Venus. Long, clear, 
straight, and well-colored, it denotes long life, 
good health, and a good character and disposi- 
tion. Pale and broad, it indicates ill-health, 
evil instincts, and a weak, envious disposition. 
Thick and red, it betrays violence and brutality 
of mind ; chained, it indicates delicacy ; and of 
varying thicknesses, a capricious, fickle temper. 
The ages at which events have happened to one 
may be told by the points at which they have 
marked the line ; for this purpose, it is divided 
into segments of five and ten years, commen- 
cing at the head of the line (Plate XII.), and 
breaks and so on in the line indicate events at 
the age at which the breaks occur. I have 
treated of this subject very carefully in "A 
Manual of Cheirosophy." 




Plate Xn.- AGES UPON THE LINES OF 
LIFE AND FORTUNE. 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 109 

The shorter the line, the shorter the life ; and 
from the point at which the line terminates in 
both hands, may be accurately predicted the 
time of death. A break in the line is always 
an illness ; if in both hands, there is a grave 
danger of death, especially if the lower branch 
turn in towards the mount of Venus. Ceasing 
abruptly with a few little parallel lines (J in 
Plate X.), the death will be sudden; a quantity 
of little bars across the line (a in Plate XIII.) 
denote continual but not very severe illnesses. 
Broken inside a square (b, Plate XIII.), it is a 
sign of a recovery from a serious illness, and a 
bar across the broken ends (c, Plate XIII.) has 
the same significance. However broken up the 
line may be, a sister line (i i, Plate II.) will always 
strengthen and mend it, and is a sign of excel- 
lent good fortune. A tassel at the end (d, Plate 
XIII.) is a sign of poverty in old age; and a ray 
going to the mount of the Moon (e } Plate XIII.) 
signifies that the head will be affected by these 
troubles. 

Rays across the hand from the mount of 
Venus (j k, Plate XL) always denote worries, 
and the age at which they occur is shown by 
the point at which the rays terminate. Their 
variation is infinite, and I have discussed them 



110 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

fully elsewhere. At the present moment I can- 
not do more — or less — than refer to them. 
A ray ascending to the mount of Jupiter (/, 
Plate XIII.) indicates success.attained by merit 
with lofty aims, ambition, and egoism. Branches 
ascending from the line (a, Plate X.) denote 
ambition, and nearly always riches. 

If the three lines are all joined together (/z, 
Plate XIII. ), it indicates grave danger of misfor- 
tune and sudden death. If, on the contrary, 
the line of head, instead of being joined to, is 
separated from the line of life (k y Plate X.), it 
indicates carelessness, extreme self-reliance, and 
generally foolhardiness in consequence. 

An island in the line of life (m, Plate XL) is 
generally an indication of some mystery as re- 
gards the birth of the subject, or else an illness 
during the years which it covers. 

The Line of Head, which is the next great line 
in the hand, should be clear and well colored, 
extending from the beginning of the line of life 
to the base of the mount of Mars, without fork, 
break, or ramification. Pale and broad, it de- 
notes feebleness or lack of intellect ; short, it 
argues a weak will ; chained, lack of fixity of 
mind ; very long and thin, it denotes treachery 
and avarice. A long line of head gives domi- 




Plate XIII.- THE LINES. 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 113 

nation and self-control to a character ; if it starts 
from the line of life under the mount of Saturn, 
it shows that the education has been acquired 
comparatively late in life, having been neglected 
in early youth. Such subjects are generally 
benevolent, and are generally great theorists. 
Stopping under the mount of Saturn is a sign 
of a sudden check to the intellectual develop- 
ment in early youth. Joined closely to the line 
of life for some distance at its commencement, 
it indicates timidity and want of self-confidence 
in a weak hand, caution and circumspection in 
a strong one. 

Declining upon the mount of the Moon, it is 
a strong sign of a wild imagination. Coming 
very low (z, Plate XIIL), it leads to mysticism 
and folly, often culminating in madness, to 
which there is a strong tendency. In a strong 
hand it gives a talent for literature ; but in 
a weak one, if it terminates in a star, with 
a star on the Mount of Saturn, it is a sign of 
hereditary madness. Turning up towards the 
line of heart {n> Plate XL), it denotes a person 
with a weak mind, who lets his heart and pas- 
sions domineer over his reason. If it touch the 
line of heart, it is a sign of an early death. A 
break in the line indicates an accident to the 



114 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

head, especially under the mount of Saturn ; 
under these circumstances, the break has been 
said to be a sign that the subject will be hung. 
Ragged, it denotes a bad memory. Forked at 
the end, with one of the " prongs " descending 
towards the mount of the Moon, is a sure indi- 
cation of hypocrisy, lying, and deceit, (/, Plate 
X.). Such subjects are clever sophists, always 
on their guard, and ready with excuses when 
necessary, reflecting that necessity is the mother 
of invention. With a good line of Apollo, it is 
a sign of great talent. If one " prong' ' go up 
to the line of heart, it is the indication of a fatal 
love-affair. A cross and a break in the line (/, 
Plate XIII.) are a sure prognostic of a violent 
death. An island on the line (£, Plate XIII.) is 
a sign of acutely sensitive nerves. A star (a, 
Plate XII.) is a sign of a wound. A ray going 
to Jupiter (/, Plate XIII.) betrays extreme ego- 
ism, and consequent good luck. 

The next line is the Line of Heart. It should 
extend clear, well traced, and of a good color, 
from the mount of Jupiter to the base of that 
of Mercury. According to the length of the 
line we find stronger or weaker affections. If 
it goes right across the hand, from side to side, 
it indicates excessive affection, resulting in a 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. II5 

morbid jealousy. If it is chained (c, Plate X.), 
the subject is an inveterate flirt; bright red, 
it denotes violence in affairs of the heart ; pale 
and broad, on the contrary, it indicates a cold- 
blooded roue if not a worn-out libertine. Very, 
very thin and bare, it is a sign of murder. 
Turning up and disappearing between the first 
and second fingers (0, Plate XL), it indicates a 
long life of unremitting labor. Broken up, it is 
a sign of inconstancy, and often of misogyny. 
Forked, with one ray of the fork going on to 
the mount of Jupiter (;;/, Plate X.), is a lucky 
sign of great good fortune, and of subsequent 
riches ; it also indicates enthusiasm in love, 
while spots on the line denote conquests in 
love, and according to the mount under which 
you find the spot you can tell the nature of the 
person with whom the love-affair has taken 
place. Turning down to the line of head is a 
sign of an unhappy marriage, or of very deep 
griefs of the heart. Lines ascending from that 
of the heart (b, Plate XII.) show curiosity, re- 
search, and versatility, but very often useless- 
ness. 

The fourth great line in the hand is that of 
Saturn, or of Fortune, which rises through the 
whole hand, from the wrist to the mount of 



Il6 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

Saturn. It may start from the wrist (/, Plate 
XIIL), from the line of life (m, Plate XIIL), or 
from the mount of the Moon, («, Plate XIIL). 
If it start from the line of life, it shows that 
one's fortune results from one's own deserts ; 
rising from the wrist, it is always a sign of 
good luck ; and starting from the mount of the 
Moon, the fortune comes entirely from a caprice, 
generally of the opposite sex. Sometimes it 
turns off, and goes to some other mount, instead 
of to that of Saturn : thus, if to Mercury, we 
find success in commerce, eloquence, and sci- 
ence ; if to Apollo, fortune from art ; if to Jupi- 
ter, satisfied pride and realized ambition. If 
the line cut through the mount, and extend 
on to the finger (<?, Plate XIIL), we get a great 
fatality, which is either good or bad, according 
to the general appearance of the hand. If the 
line of fortune is stopped at that of head, it 
shows that an impulse of the head, or error of 
calculation, has stopped one's fortune ; stopped 
at the line of heart, the ill-luck results from a 
love-affair. 

Twisted or ragged at the base, it indicates ill 
luck in early life. Split and twisted through- 
out, it denotes ill luck and ill health through 
abuse of pleasure ; or, at any rate, continual 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. \\J 

quarrels arising therefrom. An irregular line 
betrays irritability; cut by little lines on the 
mount (p, Plate XIIL), it indicates misfortune 
late in life. Forked at the base, the life is a 
continual struggle of ambition and of love ; both, 
however, will be successful and fortunate, if the 
line go well up to the mount. Any cross upon 
the line (;/, Plate X.) indicates a change in the 
life or in the position of the subject. A star 
at the base of the line (o, Plate X.) shows a 
misfortune in early youth, happening probably 
to one's parents ; especially if there is also a 
cross on the mount of Venus (/, Plate X.), 
when the misfortune arises through the death 
of a relation. 

An island on the line of fortune ( q, Plate X.) 
nearly always betrays a conjugal infidelity; and 
if a star appear on the mount, it has brought 
great misfortune in its train. A malformed line 
with an island at its base is a sign of illegiti- 
macy. If, however, the rest of the hand is 
good, this island only shows a hopeless passion ; 
if with a star on Jupiter, the passion has been 
for some celebrated or exalted person. 

Less important than these last four, but not 
less interesting, is the Line of Apollo, or Bril- 
liancy (e e, Plate II.), which rises from the plain 



Il8 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

of Mars, or the mount of the Moon, and goes 
to the mount of Apollo. Whenever it is pres- 
ent to any marked degree, we find glory, celeb- 
rity, art, wealth, merit, and success. It is 
best when it is neat and straight, making a 
clear cut upon the mount. Such subjects have, 
in all their successes, the calmness of natural 
talent, and the contentment of a proper self- 
esteem. It must always appear more or less 
in a lucky hand. If, however, the fingers are 
twisted, and the palm is hollow, it is a bad thing 
to have this line in the hand, for these indica- 
tions show an ill use of the talents denoting it. 
If it is absent from a hand, it denotes failures in 
the undertakings of the subject. Visible, but 
much broken up, it denotes a jack-of -all-trades, 
and betrays an eccentricity in matters artistic. 
Many little lines on the mount (e, Plate X.) de- 
note an excess of the artistic qualities which 
bring the subject to naught. If the line is 
equally divided on the mount (d, Plate XL), it. 
shows that the subject has two counterbalan- 
cing artistic instincts ; if, however, the line forms 
a trident (g> Plate XIII.), it is a sure sign of 
glory and of success. Cross lines on the mount 
(c, Plate XII.) signify obstacles to the success in 
art. A star at the top of the line is a sign of 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 119 

great good fortune. A black spot at the junc- 
tion of the lines of heart and of Apollo indi- 
cates blindness. 

The Line of Liver, or Health (//, Plate II.), 
comes from the base of the line of life, and goes 
towards — but seldom as far as — the mount of 
Mercury. Clearly traced, it seldom exists in a 
hand ; but when it is found, it is a sign of good 
health, gayety, and success, with long life if the 
line extend up to the mount of Mercury. Com- 
plete absence of line, far from being a bad sign, 
gives to a subject great vivacity both of man- 
ner and of conversation. Any unevenness of 
color in the line denotes bad health ; much 
twisted, it is a sign of biliousness ; much broken 
up, of a weak or disordered liver. Forked at 
the top, it gives a great capacity for occult 
sciences (d, Plate XII.). A coming sickness 
marks itself on this line by a little deep-red 
cross-ray ; a past sickness leaves a gap. Well 
joined to the line of head, it betokens a strong 
aptitude for all kinds of natural magic or psy- 
chology. An island in the line (e, Plate XII.) 
denotes a somnambulist. 

Of the girdle of Venus (gg, Plate II.), we can 
dispose in a few words. Wherever you find it 
in a hand, it is a sign of hysteria and emotion. 



120 PRACTICAL CHEIR0S0PHY. 

You may generally look upon it as a bad sign, 
for these qualities in a bad or weak hand lead 
very frequently to the lower forms of vice ; but 
this is not invariable, especially if, instead of 
being a complete semicircle, it goes off on the 
mount of Mercury (n n y Plate XIII.), when it 
becomes merely a sign of great energy and 
enthusiasm. 

If the girdle is much broken up, it is an in- 
dication of the lower passions of our natures ; 
and as I have discussed the question in A Man- 
ual of Cheirosophy, there is no need to allude to 
it here. The curious are referred to that vol- 
ume upon the point. 

On the wrist are found certain lines which 
are known as the Rascettes, or Bracelets of Life 
(Ji h in Plate II.). Each of these represents from 
five and twenty to thirty years of life. The 
general maximum is three of these lines ; and 
when clearly traced, they denote health, good 
luck, and a tranquil life. Chained, the rascettes 
indicate a laborious but fortunate life ; very 
badly formed, the lines are an indication of 
extravagance. Broken in the centre, and turn- 
ing up towards the line of fortune (r, Plate X.) 
is a sign of vanity and of deceit. A star in the 
centre of the rascette (s, Plate XIII.) is nearly 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 121 

always a sign of unexpected good fortune. 
Lines extending from the wrist to the mounts 
always betoken long voyages and good luck. 

These are the lines of the palms, as far as it 
is possible for us to go into them. There exist, 
of course, in every hand, lines which do not 
come under any of these rules ; but the expert 
in cheirosophy will have no difficulty in reading 
these by reference to their position in the hand 
with regard to the mounts and the principal 
lines. 

As to the signs which are to be found in 
the hands, I have alluded to them from time 
to time during the foregoing remarks, and their 
significance will have been more or less gath- 
ered. 

A star is always an indication of some great 
event beyond our own control, it may be either 
good or bad ; but it is generally the latter. 

A square is always protection from some 
great danger ; a spot is generally, if not inva- 
riably, a malady ; the island is always a mystery, 
something secret, and generally a disgraceful 
circumstance, connected with the line upon 
which it is found. A triangle (/, Plate XII.) 
is a symbol of a science. 



122 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

A cross is seldom favorable, signifying gener- 
ally an obstacle ; but at the same time, it usually 
highly accentuates the qualities of the mounts 
and lines on which it is found. A cross, by-the- 
bye, in the quadrangle, i.e., the space between 
the lines of head and of heart, the consideration 
of which the limits of space have compelled 
me to omit (s in Plate X.), is always a sign 
of superstition, and of a penchant to occult 
science. 

Cross lines on a mount {c, Plate XII.) are 
always an obstacle to that mount, and accen- 
tuate its bad qualities. 

In the foregoing remarks, I have endeavored 
to give you a short outline of some of the inter- 
esting points to be noted in connection with 
our hands. To hear the science ridiculed, I am 
perfectly prepared. It was the word "absurd," 
says Balzac, which condemned steam, which con- 
demned the inventions of gunpowder, printing, 
spectacles, engraving, and, more recently, aerial 
navigation, and photography. The self-compla- 
cent stolidity of lazy incredulity is invincible ; 
but people who laugh- at the science are, to the 
possessors of this knowledge, like the people in 
the gallery at a theatre, who can find no means 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 1 23 

of expressing their disapproval save by whis- 
tling and cat-calling. It is as if people who 
were born blind laughed at people who could 
see, not believing in the sense of sight. Nay, 
more, it is the blindness of people who refuse 
to see ; for here is the science, and any one 
who will learn it may do so with the greatest 
ease if he only have patience and intelligence. 

There are even people who call it wicked ; as 
if this intimate knowledge of one's fellow-men, 
and the works of an omnipotent Creator, did 
not tend to raise the hearts of men. They say 
it is wicked to go beyond the limits which 
nature has set upon our knowledge. They 
might as well condemn as wicked the use of 
spectacles, of telescopes, of microscopes, and of 
all instruments which tend to enlarge the field 
of our research. But I quote once more the 
words of Sir Richard Owen : " Our thoughts are 
free to soar, as far as any legitimate analogy 
may seem to guide them rightly, across the 
boundless ocean of unknown truth. " 

The acquisition of this science is a vast sys- 
tem of mental training ; in its research it covers 
a vast historical and archaeological field, and ed- 
ucates the mind to new and more acute habits 
of observation. What is more necessary to us 



124 PRACTICAL CHEIROSOPHY. 

than that our first indelible impression of a 
man should be the right one ? And, by means 
of this science, I claim that we are able at a 
glance to comprehend the mental development 
of whose-soever hands we are able to see. It is 
not, of course, sufficient to buy a book, and read 
it up ; especially not the ancient ones of which 
I have placed a bibliography at the end of "The 
Science of the Hand." The science must be 
continually practised, so that the comparative 
size and development of a hand may be seen 
at a glance. The knowledge will soon come if 
the exercise is continual, — personal experiment, 
said Coleridge, is necessary in order to correct 
our own observation of the experiments which 
Nature herself makes for us, which are the 
phenomena of the universe. There must always 
be, as I have said before, a certain amount of 
mystery remaining ; for all science is myste- 
rious. Even the origin of muscular power and 
animal heat, the existence of which we shall 
hardly find any one to deny, are unknown and 
mysterious. The more we investigate this sci- 
ence, the clearer and the simpler it becomes ; 
and even when we cannot exactly define the 
cause, the invariable effect is such as to establish 
cheirosophy as a fixed and exact science. 



CHEIROMANCY OR PALMISTRY. 12$ 

You must be prepared to find in this, as in 
all other sciences, occasional anomalies, contra- 
dictions. These must not dismay you. You 
will soon learn to profit as much by your fail 
ures as by your successes. 

And with this, I have done. If I have suc- 
ceeded in opening to you another page of the 
great Book of Nature, I shall feel myself more 
than repaid for the time which I have spent in 
tabulating these few notes, — too few, alas ! to 
give you more than a very meagre idea of this 
great science. And so I conclude. Let me 
hope that I have made clearer to you the sim- 
plicity, the beauty, and the enormous utilitarian 
value of Practical Cheirosophy. 

ioth March, 1887. 



THE LITERARY LIFE. 

Edited by WILLIAM SHEPARD. 

EXTRA CLOTH, GILT TOP, §1 25 PER VOLUME. 



I. AUTHORS AND AUTHORSHIP. 

M An eminently readable little volume, setting forth with an interest some- 
times amusing, sometimes pathetic, but never deficient, the peculiarities, advan- 
tages, and drawbacks of the literary profession. To all who have not yet 
committed themselves to a literary career it may be earnestly commended ; 
and to the world at large it will need no other commendation than the bright- 
ness of its style and the character of its facts and anecdotes." — London Satur- 
day Rem 

li A delightful little book, bright, gossipy, and instructive. It quotes from a 
host of authors and gives their views on the various aspects of the literary 
life. It is personal without being at all inquisitive, and is thoroughly enter- 
taining throughout." — Hart/or d Courant. 

II. PEN PICTURES OF MODERN AUTHORS. 

Containing Sketches, Anecdotes, and Personal Reminiscences of Carlyle, 
George Eliot, Ruskin, Cardinal Newman, Tennyson, Whittier, Longfellow, 
Holmes, Lowell, Walt Whitman, Swinburne, Oscar Wilde, Emerson, Haw- 
thorne, the Brownings, Dickens, Thackeray, Wm. Black, Ouida, Jean Inge- 
low, etc. 

M The presentation of such particulars as the reader wishes and has a right 
to know could not be accomplished with more delicacy, spirit, and intelligence 
than in the present little volume. — Boston Courier. 

il An exceedingly entertaining little book." — Boston Advertiser. 

11 A repository of pleasant gossip." — N. Y. World. 

III. PEN PICTURES OF EARLIER VICTORIAN 

AUTHORS. 

Containing Sketches, Anecdotes, and Personal Reminiscences of Bulwer, 
Disraeli, Macaulay, Charlotte Bronte, Washington Irving, Poe, Harriet Mar- 
tineau, etc. 






THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



OCTAVO, ILLUSTRATED. PER VOL., $1.50 
THE EARLIER VOLUMES WILL BE 

THE STORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Jas. A. Harrison 

THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. Jas. K. Hosmer 

THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen 

THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baring-Gould 

THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E. and Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HUNGARY. By Prof. A. Vambery 

THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE SARACENS. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF ASSYRIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF THE NORMANS. By Sarah O. Jewett 

THE STORY OF PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin 

THE STORY OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. By Prof J. P. Mahaffv 

THE STORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. By Geo. Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF THE GOTHS. By Henry Bradley 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



in i 

027 324 774 9 



